src.javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlSeeAlso Maven / Gradle / Ivy
package javax.xml.bind.annotation;
import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;
import java.lang.annotation.ElementType;
import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import static java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME;
import java.lang.annotation.Target;
/**
* Instructs JAXB to also bind other classes when binding this class.
*
*
* Java makes it impractical/impossible to list all sub-classes of
* a given class. This often gets in a way of JAXB users, as it JAXB
* cannot automatically list up the classes that need to be known
* to {@link JAXBContext}.
*
*
* For example, with the following class definitions:
*
*
* class Animal {}
* class Dog extends Animal {}
* class Cat extends Animal {}
*
*
*
* The user would be required to create {@link JAXBContext} as
* JAXBContext.newInstance(Dog.class,Cat.class)
* (Animal will be automatically picked up since Dog
* and Cat refers to it.)
*
*
* {@link XmlSeeAlso} annotation would allow you to write:
*
* @XmlSeeAlso({Dog.class,Cat.class})
* class Animal {}
* class Dog extends Animal {}
* class Cat extends Animal {}
*
*
*
* This would allow you to do JAXBContext.newInstance(Animal.class).
* By the help of this annotation, JAXB implementations will be able to
* correctly bind Dog and Cat.
*
* @author Kohsuke Kawaguchi
* @since JAXB2.1
*/
@Target({ElementType.TYPE})
@Retention(RUNTIME)
public @interface XmlSeeAlso {
Class[] value();
}